Secret Sisters

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  Jack watched her pull herself together. He was giving her some space, but she knew that whatever he was about to say, he was not going to try to soften the blow. Jack probably didn’t know how to soften bad news.

  She sniffed one last time and tossed the crumpled napkin into the trash.

  “Sorry, it’s been a long day,” she said. “What now?”

  “Here’s what we’ve got,” he said. “Your grandmother and Tom are dead within three months of each other and some unknown person—presumably Tom’s killer—may have tried to kill you. Meanwhile, we don’t know the whereabouts of the two other people who featured in the events eighteen years ago—Daphne and her mother.”

  Madeline stared at him, reeling from his words. “Grandma’s death was an accident, according to the authorities. Even the insurance company didn’t question it, and you know how they hate to pay out.”

  “A fire in the penthouse of an old hotel caused by faulty wiring. Only one victim, your grandmother. That kind of accident is not difficult to arrange if you know what you’re doing. And if you don’t have the skill set, you can hire someone else to set it up.”

  “It wasn’t even one of her hotels,” Madeline whispered. “Grandma was the guest of an old friend in the business, someone she had known for decades.”

  “I know. I’ve had someone on my staff looking into your grandmother’s death ever since I got a copy of the insurance company’s final report last month.”

  “What?” She bolted up out of the chair. “You thought my grandmother might have been murdered but you didn’t say anything?”

  “At the time, I didn’t have any reason to suspect that she had been murdered.” Jack’s mouth twisted. “As you said, the insurance company signed off on an accident. There was another problem, too. The only one who might have had a possible motive was you.”

  “Good grief.” She dropped back into her seat, stunned all over again. “Because I inherited the Sanctuary Creek chain.”

  “I didn’t see you as the type to murder your own grandmother for a business she had been slowly handing off to you anyway.”

  “Gosh, thanks for that rousing vote of confidence.”

  “There were other reasons I didn’t tell you that I had looked into the circumstances of Edith’s death. You were swamped. Not only were you dealing with the loss of someone you loved, you didn’t even have a real opportunity to mourn because you had to become the face of Sanctuary Creek Inns. Your employees and your execs were looking to you for direction and stability. You had to reassure suppliers and accounts. On top of that, you were starting to get uneasy about William Fleming.”

  “Fine. I was busy and grieving and I had issues with the guy I was dating. That is absolutely no excuse for not coming to me with your concerns about my grandmother’s death.”

  “I used my best judgment.”

  “Bullshit. You weren’t using good judgment. You were trying to protect me from bad news. That’s not in your job description.”

  “I didn’t have anything solid indicating that Edith’s death was anything other than an accident. For that matter, I still don’t.”

  “Bullshit, the sequel. I have recently been made aware of the fact that you have issues with being the messenger who brings me the bad news. But you need to understand that I am paying you for the news—good or bad. I do not pay you to protect me from bad news. If you screw up one more time I will find a new security firm—even if I can’t find a way out of our contract. I’ll pay for two consultants if that’s what it takes to make sure I’m getting what I want. Are we clear?”

  He studied her for a long moment. She got the impression he was seriously considering whether he should resign. That was the last thing she wanted. But some things were nonnegotiable.

  Jack finally came to a decision. “All right. I’ll make sure you know whatever I know regarding your grandmother’s death. But understand up front that a lot of the information that comes in at the start of an investigation leads nowhere. It can be confusing.”

  She allowed herself to breathe again. “Understood.”

  He gave her a reluctant smile. “You are definitely Edith’s granddaughter, all right. Sanctuary Creek Inns is in good hands.”

  “Thank you. Now stop trying to placate me. Just so you know, you’re not very good at soothing ruffled feathers.”

  “You’re not the first person to say that.”

  “Tell me what you’ve got relating to my grandmother’s death.”

  “I had nothing until now,” he said patiently. “That’s why I didn’t talk to you about the investigation.”

  She gave him a warning look.

  “But now I’ve got something,” he said.

  “Tom Lomax’s death?”

  “Yeah.” Jack finished his coffee and put the cup down. “Now we are starting to see the first ripples of what could be a very disturbing pattern.”

  “Because you have a problem with coincidence.”

  “Sure.” He raised his brows. “Don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “One accident involving a person who is keeping a secret that four other people know is a coincidence. The death of someone else who knew the secret is a pattern.”

  She absorbed that thought. “But why is the past surfacing now?”

  “I warned you that at the start of an investigation all the data points come wrapped in fog.”

  She folded her arms. “What do we do?”

  “We move on a couple of different fronts,” Jack said. “First, we find Daphne and her mother.”

  “We need to warn them, don’t we?”

  “I think so, yes.” He paused, looking a little wary. “But there is another possibility.”

  “That one of them had something to do with the deaths?” Madeline shook her head. “No. I admit I haven’t seen or spoken to Daphne or her mother for the past eighteen years, but I can’t believe either of them would kill Grandma or Tom. Setting emotions aside, there’s no logic to that theory.”

  “You were the one who told me that Edith referred to the contents of the briefcase as an insurance policy. Maybe someone has decided to collect.”

  “That is a very unnerving thought.”

  “Either way, we need to find Daphne and her mother. I’ll get someone on it immediately.”

  “Okay.” Madeline paused. “You mentioned a second front.”

  “It looks like we’ll be spending a fair amount of time on Cooper Island. We need to put together a cover story to explain my presence here.”

  “The investigation starts here?”

  “Yes,” Jack said. “And it will probably end here.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “If I’m right, this thing has its roots in the past. And this is where the past is buried.”

  “Under a gazebo.”

  “Some of it is under the gazebo. Evidently the rest is walled up in room two-oh-nine of the Aurora Point Hotel.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Daphne Knight stood in the doorway of the spare bedroom of her new condo and contemplated the chaos the intruder had left behind. The bastard had invaded her new home—her private space. It dawned on her that she ought to be feeling some strong emotion—rage, violation, fear—something.

  Instead, she was strangely numb, just as she had been for most of the past year. The Mediterranean cruise had done little to boost her spirits. Walking into her home a short time ago and discovering that it had been vandalized while she was away had not caused the appropriate degree of shock and outrage. She was just exhausted.

  Her phone rang. She turned away from the sight of her ruined home office and looked at the screen. For a couple of seconds she stared at the unfamiliar number, trying to make sense of it.

  She took the call and pressed the phone very tightly to her ear.


  “Yes?”

  “Daphne? This is Madeline Chase.”

  “Maddie? Is that really you?”

  “Yes, it’s me,” Madeline said. “Daphne, it’s so good to hear your voice. It’s been too long. Eighteen years.”

  Eighteen years, Daphne thought. But the bloody scene in the maintenance building was as sharp and clear as ever. She knew that memory played tricks over time and over distance. It was entirely possible that she had invented and reinvented some of the details of that terrible night in an effort to deal with the trauma.

  But some things had been seared into her so deeply that she could never forget them. Even after all this time they came back to haunt her dreams. The sight of Maddie crushed beneath the man named Porter. The image of Edith Chase plunging the huge pruning shears into Porter’s back again and again. The vision of Tom Lomax smashing Porter’s head with a gardening hoe. The blood had spurted in fountains.

  So much blood she was afraid that she was too late, that Maddie was dead.

  “Daphne, are you still there?” Madeline’s voice, already strained, tightened still further. “I’ve been so worried. Please tell me that you’re okay.”

  “Yes, yes, I’m okay. I’m fine. Hearing your voice is a shock, that’s all. I’m afraid you caught me at a bad time.”

  “I’m so sorry. I would offer to call later but this is really important. I have to talk to you.”

  “It’s all right. I’m just a little shaken up at the moment. My condo was burglarized while I was away on a cruise. The police just left.”

  “Oh, damn. Are you sure you’re safe?”

  Daphne took the phone away from her ear and looked at it, bewildered by the alarm in Madeline’s voice. It seemed a little over the top. House burglaries were hardly uncommon. And it wasn’t as if she and Madeline had remained close. Eighteen years was a long time.

  She put the phone back to her ear.

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “The police took a report and asked me to draw up an inventory of any stolen items. They were very nice and very professional, but they didn’t hold out much hope of catching the creep.”

  “What was taken?”

  “As far as I can tell, just my computer. Standard procedure for home burglars, the cops said. But all my important files are stored in the cloud. The place is a mess, though.”

  She looked at the papers and files that littered her office. The sketches she had done for the proprietor of a clothing boutique in Boulder had been dumped from a file drawer. Her collection of books written and illustrated by nineteenth-century architects and interior designers had been yanked out of the glass-fronted bookcase and dropped on the floor. Framed photographs of the finished interiors she had created for clients in and around the Denver area had been yanked off the wall and smashed. Here and there shards of broken glass sparked in the late-afternoon light.

  “Daphne, I’m calling about something really important.”

  “I assumed as much. I heard that your grandmother was killed in a hotel fire. I’m so sorry.”

  “You knew she was gone?”

  “My mother found the obituary online and sent it to me. To be honest, I hadn’t realized that Mom was still watching for that sort of thing. For a few years after we left Cooper Island she was obsessive about any hint of news relating to the island and your grandmother, but I thought that she had put it all behind her by the time she remarried.”

  “Your mother is married?”

  “She was. She’s widowed now. Her second husband suffered a stroke a few years ago. Mom is alone again but this time she is a very wealthy widow. Turns out rich widows are never alone, at least not for long. She’s having a good time.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I’m not sure. I’d have to check the itinerary. She’s on a round-the-world cruise with some friends. I joined her for a couple of weeks while her ship was touring the Med, but she’s still on board. She’s got another month before she returns to Florida.”

  “But she’s alive.”

  “Very much so. Maddie, don’t get me wrong, it’s great to hear from you after all this time, but what’s going on here? Why are you so nervous?”

  “I have some very disturbing news. We need to talk.”

  Daphne caught her breath. “This is about the past, isn’t it?”

  “I’m sorry, but yes, it’s about the past. It may be nothing. Or it may be something terrible. We need to figure out what is happening. I’m going to have to ask you to come to Cooper Island.”

  Daphne went cold. “You’re serious.”

  “This is secret-sisters serious, Daph. Please believe me.”

  Secret sisters. The words were a beacon of light in a world that had gone uniformly gray. Secret sisters did not lie to each other.

  “You’ve got my full attention,” Daphne said.

  “The company that handles security for Sanctuary Creek Inns has someone standing by to escort you here to the island,” Madeline said. “He’s in Phoenix now. He can be in Denver by early this evening.”

  Daphne tightened her grip on the phone. “Just to clarify, you’re talking about a bodyguard, aren’t you?”

  “I’m afraid so. Here’s what we know—there’s a possibility that Grandma was murdered because of what happened that night. And now Tom Lomax is dead, too.”

  “Tom? The nice old man who helped your grandmother—?” She could not finish the sentence. Eighteen years of silence was like quicksand. You couldn’t just step out of it all at once. You had to pull free inch by inch.

  “Tom was killed in the lobby of the hotel late yesterday,” Madeline said. “I was the one who found him.”

  “Maddie.”

  “I think the killer was still there when I arrived.”

  “My God.”

  “It’s okay, he heard the sirens and ran off. But now you tell me you’ve had a break-in and your computer is gone. This could be nothing, but we can’t take any chances. We need to get to the bottom of this thing. Hang on; Jack Rayner, the head of my security firm, wants to talk to you.”

  In spite of everything, Daphne almost smiled. At the age of twelve, Madeline Chase had talked like a future executive, and it sounded like she had fulfilled her destiny. Even as a girl, she’d had a knack for going straight to the bottom line. Stop dreaming, Daph. You don’t want to be an actress when you grow up. The odds of actually becoming a star are horrible. Besides, you’re my best friend. I can’t stand the thought of you having a lot of bad cosmetic surgery.

  Another voice came on the line—a man this time. His voice was infused with the calm, professional authority of someone who knew something about dealing with dangerous people.

  “This is Jack Rayner. Where are you?”

  “My condo. Why?”

  “I want you to leave now,” he said. “Do not take time to pack. Don’t try to grab any valuables—just your car keys, ID, and whatever you’ve got in your purse.”

  “Go where?”

  “The airport. Plenty of built-in security. I just gave my agent the go-ahead to fly to Denver. His name is Abe Rayner. He’ll have ID. He’ll escort you to Cooper Island.”

  Daphne groped to keep ahead of the flow of instructions. “Rayner?”

  “My brother. Now focus on getting to the airport. You’ll be safe there.”

  For the first time in a long while, Daphne experienced a surge of strong emotion—fear. Tom Lomax and Edith Chase were dead and someone had just vandalized her condo. Her survival instincts were kicking in.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m leaving now.”

  “I’ll stay on the phone until you’re in your car,” Jack said.

  Daphne turned away from the ruined office. She went back downstairs. The luggage she had taken on the cruise was still sitting, unpacked, in the front hall. She grabbed the roll-aboard suitcase—it w
asn’t as if she had disobeyed instructions and taken time to pack it, she thought. It was already packed.

  No matter what happens, we will be secret sisters forever.

  It was an oath sworn by two terrified girls of twelve who were forever bound by the terrible events of a night filled with blood and panic.

  Daphne ran for the door.

  Some things you had to believe in. An oath taken in girlhood between best friends who had seen more violence than anyone should have to witness in a lifetime was one of those things.

  Besides, it was not like there was anything left for her in Denver.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Louisa Webster paused in the doorway of the great room and looked at her husband. Egan stood at the wall of windows, meditating on the sweeping view. In the distance other islands in the San Juans could be seen; some, like Cooper, were large enough to support small communities. But many were so small that they were only visible at low tide.

  The fading light of the rain-stricken day transformed the dark, cold water into hammered steel. The cloud cover hung low over the island. She knew there were plenty of sunny days on Cooper Island, but it seemed to her that it was always like this when she and Egan were in residence—an unrelenting shade of gray.

  A fire burned in the big stone fireplace, but no one had turned on the lights in the room.

  She remembered her first impression of Egan all those years ago. He had been so arrestingly attractive in so many ways—a tall, broad-shouldered, athletically built man with a mane of blond hair, brilliant blue eyes, and classically chiseled features. Very little had changed over the years. Like a charismatic televangelist, he managed to project the image of a man endowed with the wisdom that came with maturity coupled with the energy of a man in his prime.

  And like a successful televangelist, he’d always been able to seduce his audience—investors, politicians, friends, women. He had a gift for convincing others that he could make dreams come true. He had employed that talent to make a fortune.

  Unlike the average televangelist, Egan had delivered on at least some of his promises—specifically those relating to wealth. He’d made a good living as a stockbroker in the early years, but after establishing his own hedge fund, Egan had been golden. It was as if he could not miss. His ability to predict markets had made him a legend and opened doors in the political, social, and financial worlds.